| Abstract [eng] |
that the first bishop of Vilnius came from the Franciscan convent in Vilnius that was set up in the wake of the martyrdom. Such false information makes the Bychowiec chronicle stand apart from all other Lithuanian chronicles. In short, the story of the origins of the Catholic faith in Lithuania as it is presented in the Bychowiec chronicle attempts at diminishing the role of the Polish mediation in the Lithuanian conversion and thus to provide grounds for setting up, eventually, an ecclesiastical province. So far-fetched scheme should be compared with the attempts on the part of Lithuanian magnates to make Sigismundus Augustus king of Lithuania, a suggestion that was confided in to his father Sigismundus the Old in 1526. Taking into account the ability of the medieval chroniclers to write “history of the future” by putting contemporary or future aspirations deep in the past, this legend sheds some light on what was the ultimate purpose of some Lithuanian magnates. As is well known medieval Lithuania did not become kingdom, nor did the diocese of Vilnius receive the status of archbishophic (up to the twentieth century). Whatever the original motives for the appearance of the legend it continued to live on its own for centuries. This must be due not only to the “perenial” theme of the origins of the Catholic faith in Lithuania, but also to a rather rich field of possible associations with some Scriptural episodes and the cults of the other saints. This legend has been taken for granted for centuries and was able even to exercise its impact on the sacred topogaphy of Vilnius, as is seen to this day in the case of the Three Crosses that dominate over the Old Town. |
